Virgil was one of the greatest poets of Latin literature. His grates work is the Aeneid. It includes the remarkable story of Dido and Aeneas.

Metamorphoses by Ovid

A collection of stories from the Greek mythology. The common theme is people being transformed into something else. Ovid jumps from a story to another, but the poem is extremely well written. Ovid and Vergil were the greatest poets of Golden age Latin literature. The celebrities presented in this poem are: Helios, Narcissus, Medusa, Arachne, Medea, Daedalus, Hercules, Orpheus, Alcyone, Ajax, Hecuba, Scylla, Icarus and Daedalus (who both reach for the sky: "Though he [Minos] may barricade the earth and the waves, the sky at least stands open; we will go that way").

Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri

The three books are each 33 cantos long, and all end with the same word ("stelle"). Inferno is theatrical, with countless memorable quotes. Dante puts in Limbo the greatest souls who lived in the Ancient world: he judges poets, philosophers and famous people. Paradise describes Mary, Christ, and God (in all its glory and complexity). For what I know, no other writer provides such a clear and detailed vision of God. Every word of the poem counts. To be able to read the original Italian poem is a stroke of fortune. "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third." T. S. Eliot

Paradise Lost by John Milton

A grandiose, apocalyptic poem about the fall of man, and the fall of Satan. Milton was a sublime visionary, a master of beauty and of the English language.

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust will serve the devil in hell; in exchange, the devil will serve Faust on earth.

Homer -The Iliad ;The Odyssey

These books are among the best poems of the ancient world, and among the most influential works of the Western civilization.

Lucretius - On the Nature of the Universe

The poem illustrates the teachings of Epicurus, and exposes his atomic theory: everything in the Universe is composed of tiny particles, called atoms. There is a passage of this poem that describes the Brownian motion of dust particles. Einstein too was interested in this motion, which allowed him to calculate the size of atoms.